


In Vino Veritas

by beforethedawn, ConstructFairytales, Destinyawakened



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: #drukenkisseschallenge, 2.13 divergence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Choices, Drunk Kissing, Kissing, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, Rain, Whiskey - Freeform, bad choices, but - Freeform, getting drunk, heavy making out, wet, wet clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-06-18
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:43:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7232392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beforethedawn/pseuds/beforethedawn, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConstructFairytales/pseuds/ConstructFairytales, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destinyawakened/pseuds/Destinyawakened
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will has one too many whiskies and a change heart before the big Hannibal show down. Liquid Courage. For the #DrukenKissesChallenge</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Vino Veritas

**Author's Note:**

> 1) no betta  
> 2) This is the first of what might be more fics to come from Beforethedawn and I. We've been writing for ages, but just now putting out some of our hannigram.

The dream-like stasis which Hannibal's office took that day, as papers fell around Will's head, kept him comfortably soothed in what he was doing. As Hannibal spoke of mind palaces and places he would live in, if ever he needed to, Will started committing to memory the way office smelled, the way Hannibal looked in his waistcoat, the thorough part of his hair, the amber glow of fire in his dark eyes… enough to be a distraction from the real plan at hand. As his eyes drifted over Hannibal, both of them shoving papers and files into the fire, Will realized the inevitable had happened, and yet he couldn't bring himself to think the words let alone say them.

There was no room for feelings here. Will had merely gotten too close, too involved, and too deeply entwined in Hannibal Lecter’s mind.

Will left that afternoon, they'd meet up again tomorrow, as Hannibal had one last patient to see about first, and Will had last minute preparations.

Last minute preparations turned into a glass of whiskey in one hand, and a proverbial glass of regret in the other. As Will dragged a hand down his scruffy face, he downed a third glass, all regrets starting to surface anew, every emotion hanging thin and high in the air, taunting him. They could run, they could run now.

Two hours later, Will arrived at Hannibal's office, sitting in his car as he finished the bottle he started at home-- liquid courage to do what had to be done. He gathered the bag he'd packed, not much, and tucked the letter for Alana in his pocket. Stumbling up the steps, Will let himself into the main building and didn't even bother to knock on the office door, he simply let himself in, a drunken, ragged mess, looking like a kid running away from home.

A rich, ghastly woman looked over at him, thin brow raised expectantly, but Will cut the bitch off: “Get out, he doesn't even like you.” Slurred words fell heavy into the air, and the woman looked at Hannibal, clear she wanted him to defend her.

  
The last few hours since Hannibal had seen Will had been an exercise in agony. Like Othello’s handkerchief, Hannibal had the fresh scent of Freddie’s uniquely cheap, abrasive combination of too much drugstore hair product, and knock-off perfume lodged in his heart like a dagger.

Freddie was alive. Will had seen her, recently. It was all a lie. 

  
Hannibal knew what was to happen. Will would let Jack and the FBI take him in, if he survived the closing of their trap. The thought of death, the thought of bare prison walls didn’t hurt as much as the knowledge that it had all meant nothing to Will.

Hannibal had allowed himself to become enamoured with a skilled, elaborate lie, and Will felt _none_ of it. He was a beautiful lure, dangled skillfully to attract the Chesapeake Ripper, and surely enough, Hannibal had swallowed, hook-line-and-sinker, as they say.  
Hannibal felt _gutted_ . He was hollow with rage, and uncomfortable, twisting grief beneath his composed surface.  
  
He might never be able to pull the hook of Will’s lure from his flesh, but he knew what he had to do to prevent himself from being reeled in, and mounted as a trophy for the FBI.  
  
He had to kill them, tonight. All of them.

The thought of killing Will was both satisfying, and like amputating half of his own heart. He was not certain how he would manage to make himself do it, but he knew he _must_.

Keeping up appearances would be important, however he felt, right until the gruesome end. In this vein, he was having his last session with a depressed socialite, barely listening to her banal complaints when something truly unexpected occurred.  
  
Will burst in, like a wild animal. He was nearly blind drunk, staggering and slurring, and insulted his patient.

Will reeked of whiskey, the alcohol fumes that wafted from his skin were nearly enough to exorcise the lingering scent of Freddie Lounds completely. 

Hannibal’s jaw dropped in surprise at Will, and he stood smoothly, which seemed to placate his outraged patient.  
  
“Did you drive yourself here, Will?” Hannibal asked, with an exasperated sigh, as he smoothed the front of his waistcoat with one hand, tired to the bone, and watched Will glaring at his patient with something akin to jealousy.

When the woman made no move to leave, Will stared at her, blue eyes blazing bright against alcohol flushed skin. He dropped his bag to the ground, and slowly moved his gaze over to Hannibal, focusing on his words.

“Yeah, I did.” -- A beat, a breath, a moment, he could still leave-- “Tell her leave. Now.” Neither of them moved and Will felt his blood start to boil in his veins. “Now!”

“I think our time is up,” Hannibal said to the woman with a decisive look, and she scrambled from her seat, away from Will, and out the door.

Hannibal’s eyes seemed to darken as he beheld Will there, and his jaw set.

“It’s foolhardy to operate a vehicle in your state.”

Hannibal paused, unable to resist.

“Were I a less loyal friend, I would have you _arrested_ , Will.”

Taking in a shaky breath as Will followed the woman, and locked the door behind her, his limbs barely able to keep him in a straight line now, Will glared over his shoulder at Hannibal, a single curl falling into his blue eyes.

“I drank the rest when I got here,” he murmured, slurring over just a few of the words as they tumbled out in a southern drawl, no care to cover it. “Then have me arrested, they’ll still come for you later. Jack knows.”

But still, at his feet, was a bag, with just the essential belongings. He pulled the letter from his pocket for Alana and set it on Hannibal’s desk, then used his palms to steady himself there as the world spun in a vicious blur.

“I’m leavin’ the dogs with Alana.”

Hannibal poured Will a glass of water from an elegant decanter on his sideboard, and his shoulders went stiff at Will’s slurred announcement.

“Not with _Jack?”_ Hannibal asked, and turned, eyes cold and jaw set.

“You two are so close that I see there are no secrets between you,” Hannibal muttered, stiffly, and handed the glass of water to his lovely Judas.

Perhaps he had to do it now, finish Will right here in the office where they’d grown close.

“How _is_ Freddie?” Hannibal asked, his usually controlled voice beginning to rasp with the effort of maintaining his demeanor.

Will turned, slowly, looking at Hannibal, blue eyes set on him at the realization that Hannibal had figured it out, Will had not had the chance to reconcile and just _run_ with him. His heart thudded loudly in his ears, making it hard to hear much else, a dull throb pulsing through his head. He stepped closer to Hannibal, one hand out, not to take the glass, but to press firmly against his chest, to see if their heart beats matched up, like he thought they might.

“You knew,” he said, blinking his bloodshot eyes up at Hannibal.

Will’s hand rested on Hannibal’s chest, and instead of making Hannibal feel better, everything felt so much _worse_ .  Hannibal’s eyes went wet, no matter how much control he tried to exert, tears welled in front of their twin dark pupils, and his throat squeezed, tightly.  
  
“Your shirt smelled of her,” Hannibal managed to rasp, barely able to keep his voice steady as he set the glass of water on the surface of his desk. He kept accusing eyes on Will, glaring through the wet that blurred his vision.  
  
“Had it not, you would have fooled me, Will, completely. _Congratulations_ .”  
  
A letter opener lay on the desk, close enough to grasp.

Will could see the anger and betrayal in Hannibal eyes, and kept him just _there_ with his hand, using the other man to steady himself as much as he was trying to hold him in place. Will’s eyes focused on Hannibal’s amber ones, remembering the lively glow they took on from the fireplace earlier that day.

“I told you there’d be…. A, uh… reckoning,” Will slurred, trying to find his words amongst the dry tongue he was now encountering. “But, I didn’t expect to… to feel anything for you. I didn’t-- I didn’t expect this to be hard.”

He didn’t let Hannibal say anything, he pulled the other man by the tie and kissed him, no regrets, no remorse, letting the alcohol give him the courage he wished he had sooner, before everything started to unravel.

It was not often Hannibal Lecter was taken by surprise, but Will Graham proved himself, once again, fully capable of managing.

Will’s lips, heated with whisky and the pump of his speeding heart locked over Hannibal’s with force that would surprise everyone but Hannibal. He’d always imagined this was the way Will would kiss, with passion.  
  
When Hannibal could move again, after a stunned second, he seemed to battle with the urge to grab the letter opener again before he kissed Will slowly in return. His hands rested against Will’s shoulders, trembling hard, and a low, almost desperate sound rumbled in Hannibal’s chest as their lips locked for the first time.

Pressing himself in closer, Will let his fingers slip to loosen the knot in Hannibal’s tie as his head canted enough to lock their lips together seamlessly, able to hear only the thrum of his own heart until his chest was next to Hannibal’s, sure he could _feel_ it trying to keep time with his own, fast and almost dizzying.

  
Like the last effort of a dying beast, Hannibal reached out to clutch the letter opener, and picked it up, then curled his free hand in Will’s hair. It was simple, one stab, and then a slice across his abdomen, and Will would feel _everything_ Hannibal had felt. He would suffer, greatly, he would have months to think it all over if he lived.  
  
But Will’s lips were impossible to pull away from.  
  
“You lied to me-” Hannibal whispered, between angry kisses, and bit Will’s lower lip, hard enough to draw a bead of blood, then kissed it again, instantly.

“You had me locked up,” Will whispered back, the first thing to slur off his tongue, against Hannibal’s mouth, licking the blood from his lips and then kissed Hannibal harder, hands moving around his shoulders. “You took advantage of my mental state.” Not that he was making a great case right now in his drunken lust.

“You seduced me,” Hannibal argued, between kisses as he began to back Will to the wall, and pinned him against it, hard, then kissed him again, and bit another spot on his lips. Blood only made the taste of whiskey and _Will_ more intoxicating.  
  
“You knew I was becoming attached to you,” Hannibal whispered, broken-hearted, “I let you _know_ me, see me…”  
  
Hannibal gripped the blade more tightly, bracing himself to pull back and watch Will’s face as he drove it into his abdomen. He had to do it, soon.  
  
“Are you here to stall? To buy Jack time?” Hannibal accused, breathlessly, and then kissed Will so hard that he couldn’t answer. He didn’t want to know.

Head spinning, Will couldn’t even wrap his mind around the next words he needed, head too foggy to even consider the right answer, as nothing was right and yet nothing was _wrong_ either. He held his hands at Hannibal’s waist, just by his elbows, fingers gripped tight at the hem of his slacks, not letting him leave.

“Hannibal-” he gasped between heated kisses, bated breaths warming the air around them thickly, panting as lust filled Will where the flush of intoxication hadn’t. “N-no. I’m… I came to…” he blinked, wanting to gesture to his bag, to his final decision to _really_ run away. “Just you. We can run tonight.”

Hannibal looked straight at Will, with tears clinging to his fair eyelashes as Will spoke.  
  
All of the air seemed sucked out of the room, and Hannibal moved his face closer to Will’s, so that their profiles nestled together, his regal nose against Will’s, breathing together.  
  
“Now? No looking back? No regrets?” he breathed, accent thick over the words.

Will’s doe eyed gaze looked up close at Hannibal, and he nodded slowly, pulling him closer by the hips. Though inebriated, he was well aware of the feelings that had bubbled inside of him since the day he showed up at Hannibal’s office with his new clothes and new hair cut. It wasn’t just simply making an impression.

“No,” Will murmured, heart racing and pulsing in his throat, like it was trying to jump right out of his mouth. 

  
Hannibal made his choice. He closed his eyes, squeezed the handle of the letter opener, then kissed Will’s lips harder, and dropped the letter opener to the thick rug beneath their feet. Both hands cupped Will’s face, now, shaking and strong at the same time. A tear streaked over Hannibal’s cheekbone, and then between their faces, as shared as their memory palaces, another point where they were conjoined.  
  
“Now,” Hannibal whispered. “Now, before Jack realizes you are not where you should be. We’ll run.”  
  
It wasn’t the right time, it wasn’t their failed plan, but it was flight in it’s truest form: free and improvised, adjusting itself with the gusts of wind and change that met them.  
  
Will closed his eyes as Hannibal spoke, nodding again, letting the other man ground him, now that he had him, enamoured and entrapped, and this time for Will’s own selfish needs and wants.

“Now.”

  
“I … have your passport,” Hannibal whispered. He had not been able to bring himself to burn the perfect forgery of Will’s passport, his new identity. It was still in his desk drawer, thankfully.  
  
“We must stop at my house, there’s something there,” Hannibal said, looking Will’s face over between his palms, flushed and exquisitely featured.

“Something…?” Will asked, hair now askew around his face where it was mussed from their kissing. He couldn't make the leap to connect what Hannibal was talking about, his mind muddled.  
Will looked strangely angelic for a drunk man. Hannibal kissed him again, mussing his curls a little more as he did, and nodded as he kissed and backed Will toward his desk.  
  
“A surprise for you.”

“Even though… I betrayed you?” Will asked, letting Hannibal lead him, nearly blind with drunkenness, slipping back against the desk.

Hannibal nodded, and pulled the passports from his desk, then paused and wrote a short apology to Jack for cancelling their dinner plans so hastily, and left it on the center of his desk. The note was left with Will's, two final endings to two very well planted lives here.  
  
He pocketed the passports and kissed Will again, for the sake of kissing his warm, bloodied lips.  
  
“It’s been something I’ve had planned for a long time,” Hannibal hinted.

Grasping on to Hannibal's arm, Will leaned to pick up his bag, settling it over his shoulder. “You knew this moment would come.”  
“Yes, I did,” Hannibal said, his eyes soft with emotion before he kissed Will again, as though they had been doing it for years, then guided him out of the office for the last time.

Everything was easily familiar, even through the hazy drunk Will was trying to fight through. With a trust he never knew he had for Hannibal, Will kept close as they walked to the doctor's car, keeping close and a hand on him to keep himself upright. Once at Hannibal's car, Will leaned back against the door and pulled Hannibal close and kissed him deeply. Whatever the surprise, as long as they were together, it hardly mattered what it could be.

Hannibal’s eyebrows rose at Will’s affinity for a very public display of affection. He kissed Will back, slowly, losing himself in the sensation, and opened the passenger door for Will, blindly.Public hardly mattered when they were about to be wanted men.  Will let out a low groan of pleasure, keeping Hannibal as close as possible, delving his tongue against lips and teeth.  
  
Hannibal’s hand drifted off of the car door handle, and part of him expected to hear sirens approaching, then feel Will slip a cuff around his wrist so that Jack would have a better chance at catching him.  
  
The sound never came. Only Will kissing him madly, as though Hannibal were the air he needed under leagues of ocean.

And it never would.

Will sighed into the kiss, hands kept tight on Hannibal's waist, right where he could feel them. He panted, pulling back, dizzy, heart in his throat.

“Let's go.”

Hannibal nodded, and rested their faces together, eyes closed. He opened the door for Will, and helped him in, then slid into the driver’s side and drove away from his stately office for the last time.

He handed Will his false passport.

“It may be best to familiarize yourself with your new identity.”

“My name is John now?” Will asked, blinking at the blurry words which seemed to move on the passport, and instead of trying, he set it in his lap and rested his head back for a moment.

“John, an electrician,” Hannibal said with a little smile, and reached over to put his hand over Will’s.

“Common enough a name, and occupation not to draw too much interest.”

As his head started to feel more and more tired, Will let it loll against the seat, his fingers tight around Hannibal’s, as if maybe he might try to get rid of him, drop him off on the side of the road, gut him, and leave him. Now that Will had him, he wouldn’t be too quick to let him go.

“I guess I’ll pass for an electrician.”

“You have the weathered hands of a craftsman,” Hannibal said, with soft admiration as he felt Will’s hands with one of his own. He had already memorized his callouses.

Hannibal managed the short drive home in record time, neared his house, and stopped at the sight of an unfamiliar car across the street from his house, one man inside.

He set his jaw, and smoothly reversed his vehicle, then headed down another street.

“Was anyone aware you were coming to see me today, Will?”

Will let his hazy gaze focus the bet it could on the car, brows furrowing, and his heart thudding loudly in his head. All too sobering, Will shook his head slowly. “I went from seeing you right home, and then to you again.”

“In that case,” Hannibal said, as they drove away from the house, toward the freeway, “I’m afraid we’ll have to forego your surprise. I’m fairly certain Jack is having my house watched. This may be our only window of escape,” Hannibal murmured, regret heavy in his voice.

He had planned on killing Abigail, too. This was not what he knew was ideal, but she would live. He had to consider that his farewell gift. And less Will knew, the less it would hurt him.

“You don’t need anything?” Will asked, exhaustion hitting him harder than he expected it would, but the effects of alcohol were wearing on his system, pulling him down into the undercurrent of fatigue.

“Nothing that is worth being caught,” Hannibal murmured, and swallowed hard. He knew Abigail would understand, eventually, at least.  
  
They headed toward the coast.

Rain started to splatter against the windshield, smearing headlights across the glass, nearly hypnotizing as Will watched, arms crossed over his chest, dazing out, trying to not to fall asleep, to remember every last detail of their very last moments here.

Hannibal ran his thumb over the side of Will’s hand, slowly, and stole glances at him as they headed through light traffic in the expensive cocoon of Hannibal’s car.  
  
“If you’re tired, sleep. I’ll wake you when we’re there,” Hannibal murmured as they drove through the rain that would likely last all evening.

Consent to fall asleep was taken, and Will slowly dozed, sleeping off the worst of his impending headache, and dizzy head.

Hours later, Hannibal touched Will’s cheek with one hand, after watching him sleep for longer than he had meant to.  
  
“Will. We’re here.”

Startling awake, dry mouthed now and not really much better, Will blinked his eyes open at Hannibal, gathering himself mentally to remember where they were headed. Out of town, out of country.

“When’s the flight?”

“Tomorrow, we will cross into Canada, and from there, fly to Europe,” Hannibal said with a slow sigh, watching the pattern rain and moonlight made against Will’s face through the window.

“We’re at my safe house, out of the way, and beneath Jack’s radar. You’ll be more comfortable inside.”  
  
The house behind Will was a much more modern sort of elegance than Hannibal’s Baltimore home, with clean, sleek lines.  
  
Will opened the car door and slid out, almost stumbling, but managed, grabbing his bag as he went, rain pelting down against his already messy curls.

“Safe house for now, leave in the morning?”

  
“Precisely,” Hannibal agreed, and climbed out of the car, then caught up to Will, an arm around him as he helped him to the house through the pelting rain. For a moment, Hannibal looked up at the sky, and enjoyed the feeling of the cool water against his skin, washing their old lives away.  
  
He unlocked the house with a hidden key, and held the door open for Will.  
  
“After you.”

Will kept close to Hannibal, nearly tripping into the house, and managed to catch himself on the wall, giving Hannibal a look over his shoulder, hair wet and matted down to his head now.

“How many safe houses do you have?” He knew of none of them.

“Four,” Hannibal said, and stepped in after Will, then closed the door and turned a light on overhead. Hannibal somehow looked sleek when wet, Will looked shaggier, and more disheveled.

Hannibal removed his coat, and sat down to remove his shoes, then disappeared into the darkness of the rest of the house.  
  
He returned with a towel for Will, and wrapped it around his shoulders.

Will offered a slight smile, watching Hannibal up close like this, stepping in closer, wanting to make sure what happened at his office had been _real_ , especially now that the drunk fog was wearing off, and he was left with a dream-like state of hours prior.

Hannibal toweled Will’s hair dry as they stared at one another, silent except for the sound of their breathing, and the rain.  
  
“Are you also trying to reassure yourself that this is reality?” Hannibal asked, with a low laugh in his voice.

“It is… a little unbelievable, considering your relationship with Alana,” Will said, though now that they were here without any person suits, no veils, Will could clearly see how Alana had been played and used.

All to edge against Will’s jealousy he didn’t even know existed until Hannibal tapped into them.

Hannibal smiled at that, and shook his head as he finished drying Will’s curls, and wrapped the towel around his shoulders, standing close.  
“Alana will understand, very quickly, that what we had was a necessity, and she was quite efficiently blinded to my true nature.”

“I could tell,” Will whispered, reaching out hands against Hannibal’s wet waist, inching fingers around his back until they were pulled flush together, warm beneath the cool of their wet clothes.“You were jealous,” Hannibal whispered, against Will’s lips, lost again in the intoxication of being this close to him, even if most of the whiskey fumes had worn off of Will for now.  
“I was,” Will said, quietly, murmured into Hannibal’s mouth, engulfed in the warmth they seemed to generate between them.  
“I would be dishonest if I did not admit that I was fed by your jealousy,” Hannibal whispered, and brushed his lips against Will’s, slowly, barely a kiss at all. He wasn’t certain whom he was teasing more, himself, or Will.

“We feed into each other.” Will pressed his wet chest against Hannibal’s, feeling out his well toned torso with his own, heat between them slowly drying them, warming them to the bone with lust.

“And nourish one another,” Hannibal agreed, nuzzling Will slowly as they dried off.  
“In ways no other ever could.”  
Will breathed out slowly, just letting them stay close like this, no rushing a thing. “And never will.”


End file.
